Kathryn Harris's Blog

I woke up at 3:30 a.m. with an overwhelming sense of dread.

My thoughts -- as mundane as a four-hour lecture on the benefits of tax increment financing -- pressed on me like the weight of dirt covering a thousand-foot grave.

Monday - busy day at work. Remember to pay that bill. You'll probably need gas in the car.

Rolling over, I'd hoped to go back to sleep. But the weight of my thoughts kept getting heavier.

I hope we get this roof done before it gets any colder. I hope Molly likes her new apartment. I hope Kelly has a safe trip to Indiana. I hope Kristi has a safe trip to Hawaii.

And heavier...

Dana needs to get his truck fixed.

And heavier...

What if we don't get this roof done?

And heavier...

What if something awful happens to someone I love? 

Sadly, my mind goes into specifics about those awful somethings. I won't go into detail, but I will say I didn't hesitate to tell my Hawaii-bound sister to get her butt to higher ground if an earthquake hits the island.

Have I ever mentioned my irrational fear of tsunamis?

These days I seem to have an irrational fear of everything.

And, as it turns out, logging onto Facebook at 3:30 a.m. is one of the worst things you can do when you're trying to put irrational fears from your mind.

Reports of Active Shooter in Las Vegas

The illuminated headline screamed into the darkness of my bedroom.

I lost track of time as I watched the news reports roll in and grow grimmer by the cycle. The death toll was at 30 by the time my alarm went off. By the time I got to work at 6:20 a.m., "at least 50" souls had been taken from this world by a maniac with a gun in his grip and, presumably, a chip on his shoulder.

I went through my busy day, took care of my busy work. All the while, I thought of the dead, their families. I thought of everyone at the concert, as well as those at the Bataclan in Paris and at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.

I don't understand it. I can't understand it. 

I know better than to search for a reason. You'd have to be mad to find a reason for such madness.

But such tragedies seem to make my irrational fears less and less irrational. How can anyone feel safe at a concert anymore? How can anyone feel safe anywhere anymore?

Then, as if taunted by the universe, I learned that Tom Petty -- an artist I'd long ago put on my bucket list to see in concert -- had a cardiac episode and was on life support. Less than 20 minutes after that, I learned a local minister -- someone with whom I had a long working relationship -- had died unexpectedly. He was about my age.

I had every reason to come home tonight and crawl back into bed.

Instead, I came home, dressed in my sweatshirt and shorts and took my dog to the park for a walk.

Just a half mile. Just a mile. Just another half mile. Just one more half lap of the arboretum. 

I walked until my feet hurt. I walked until my leg muscles burned. I walked for all of those who couldn't in Las Vegas, in Paris and Manchester. I walked for Tom Petty and the music he gave the world. I walked for Pastor Justin. I walked until my dog dragged me back to the car.

I walked because I could. It's one thing in this world that doesn't scare me anymore.

KAT'S NOTE: This is a repost from Sept. 1, 2009. It popped up as a memory in my Facebook newsfeed this morning, and it hit especially close to home right now as my family deals with the untimely death of my husband's older brother, Kelly. 

I will eventually write a tribute post about him, but right now it's still too hard to believe he's gone.  

I take comfort in the fact that we left nothing unsaid when it came to Kelly. He knew how much we adored him, and we are confident we will one day see him again in that giant tinkering shop in the sky. 

*** 
I grew up on an acreage with lots and lots of cats. They were a comfort when I was lonely and needed something with which to cuddle.

I could use a fuzzy plaything right now. It's been a crazy start to the school year for my girls. Not the fun kind of crazy either. It's been the kind of crazy that makes this 30-something-year-old girl seek shelter from the world in the quilt her mom gave her for Christmas.

But I can't. My own children are looking to me for strength.

The phone pulled me from a twilight state early Saturday morning. My mom asked if my oldest daughter was home, and then she asked if we'd heard about the accident.

"The accident?" As I parroted these words, the memory of blaring sirens the night before flittered through my head. They were close to my house, and I remembered thinking -- as my youngest daughter's birthday party carried on -- that I should gather my family to pray for those being tended to.

"There was a bad accident last night and a carload of kids from Pierce were involved," my mother said.

I later discovered one of my daughter's schoolmates -- a young man just starting his junior year -- lost his life in the accident. Two young girls -- both younger than my daughter -- were seriously injured.

Over the weekend, I tried to be there for Molly as she asked questions or sat in contemplative silence.

"I just keep thinking. . . what if. . .?"

What if she had gone to the soap scrimmage at the high school? What if she'd have talked to those kids? What if talking to them would have delayed their journey away from town by even a second or two?

The what-if questions seemed endless, and at first, I didn't know how to respond.

But then I realized something...

How would she have known if her presence had changed the outcome or prevented this tragedy? Maybe her words or actions or even just her smile has made a positive impact on someone's life already.

How do any of us know when we've touched another person's life? It's like a random act of kindness paid forward. We may never know our impact on someone else's hour, someone's day or the path of someone's life.

My Uncle Al lost his battle with emphysema and COPD during the night last night. Even though I knew he wasn't well, I never took the opportunity to tell him about the impact he made on my life -- how his wit always cracked me up and how I loved how his one-line quips always one-upped my dad's. I never took the opportunity to point out the fact that whenever he told me and my cousins that we were acting like monkeys that it made him a monkey's uncle. (I know he'd have loved that one.)

I guess what I want to say is you never know how your actions could impact someone's life. And the people who impact you won't know they've touched you either unless you tell them.

So, here's an e-hug to all of you who've encouraged me in one way or another in my writing, in my music and in my life.

I appreciate the knowledge and cyber friendship that you all have offered.



* * *
"The Long Road to Heaven" by Kathryn Harris, a story of addiction and forgiveness, is available now on Amazon. 

Dana and "his puppy" BruizerI've waited ten years to write this post.

Many times, I wondered if I'd ever be able to.

Ten years ago today, I walked into the garage with my arms crossed to hide my shaking hands. I didn't want my husband to know how scared I was to bring up such a difficult subject with him.

"We need to talk."

Those four words barely caught enough air to pass my lips. The entire future of our then-12-year marriage hinged on the outcome of the conversation we were about to have.

I loved my husband. He was a good man, a loving father, a hard worker, a beautiful and creative mind. I didn't want to lose him.

Trouble is I was losing him -- to a cunning mistress with whom I could no longer compete.

Alcoholism.

Dana and I met the first week of my freshman year of college. Up until that point, I was what you might consider a goody-two-shoes. I didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't break curfew. I did my homework and never broke the rules.

That changed when I met Dana. In my eyes, he was that boy mama warned me about. He had a year of college under his belt. He had long hair, a pierced ear, a tattoo and, best of all, he played guitar.

To say I fell ass-over-teakettle is a bit of an understatement.

He and I quickly began a whirlwind courtship blurred by many bottles of Schnapps and an entire brewery of Busch Lite. (I'm still trying to piece together 1993, so if anyone can fill in the blanks, feel free to message me.) We switched colleges, and I watched him chase his dream of being a musician. We had fun, and when my haze of alcohol finally cleared, we were married and expecting our first child.

We settled into married life, started full-time jobs, bought a car, switched jobs, bought a house, got a dog and, eventually, had our second child.

In all of that time, I never noticed Dana hadn't stop drinking the way we did in college. There were signs that I'd missed, but he didn't fit the stereotypical definition of a drunk. He'd simply come home from work every night, crack open a beer or six and drink until it was time to go to bed. On the weekends, beer-thirty came a bit earlier and the drinks went down a little faster.

But I didn't notice there was a problem until a friend pointed it out to me.

Until that point, I couldn't understand why he was becoming increasingly distant and sad, why his nights were filled with the frustration of condensed sleep cycles, why he threw tantrums when there wasn't enough money to buy beer or not enough time for a few drinks before we had to be someplace.

I had reached a breaking point the day I walked into the garage and uttered those four words. His sadness and distance had created a chasm between us. I could no longer reach him, and something needed to change.

You pick: Me or the alcohol.

He had fear in his eyes that day when I delivered that blow. Putting myself in his situation, I'm not sure I'd have been strong enough to make the decision he made.

He poured out the remainder of his beer. And he's been sober ever since.

I will not lie about this; It has not been an easy road.

From my perspective, putting down a drink is not the hard part. The challenge is not picking it back up again.

I could not begin to explain how difficult it has been to walk through this process with him. The entire first week after our talk he said only a handful of words to me. (Most of which were, "Can I have a beer now?" -- Not a joke.)

I later learned that the approach and short-term follow up he took stepping toward sobriety was ill-advised. O ne in ten alcoholics suffers serious complications -- including seizures and death -- while going through withdrawal? 

After ten years, I don't think a day has gone by where he hasn't wanted a beer. Sobriety is such a delicate thing, and the temptation is pervasive.

You lose friends. You soon realize how much society uses alcohol as an easy entertainment option, and when it's not longer available, you're left behind by the friends who still have that option.

You lose your coping mechanism. For Dana, stepping into sobriety meant facing the excruciating pain of the depression for which he'd been self-medicating. That's a whole 'nother post.

You lose your crutch. For some people, alcohol provides a prop that allows the drinker to find a sense of authority when he/she speaks. Without it, he/she becomes mute with the insecurity that everything he/she says holds no importance, which is not true.

I can't begin to express the love and admiration I have for this man, for his strength, for his courage.

He has endured every craving, every temptation, every need for alcohol for the past ten years now with solid character and constitution, and he's never been afraid to admit his vulnerability in the face of his addiction.

He's not ashamed to admit he's on constant guard, living with the knowledge that stumbling back into addiction is a real threat.

Especially when he has to put up with me. :)

Thank you, God, for making my husband the man that he is today.

* * *
Kathryn Harris is an award-winning journalist and the author of "The Long Road to Heaven," the story of a modern-day Cinderella whose thwarted happily-ever-after leads her back to the one place she never wanted to see again -- home. 

I'm not a numbers girl.

The fact that I managed a C in my high school algebra classes should be considered nothing short of a miracle.

So don't ask me to figure out the odds of someone finding my book by looking for information on a long-dead Nebraska town that most people have never heard of.

All I know is it happened, and it's one of the coolest things that has happened to me as an author.

Why Brayton, Nebraska?

I'd written several drafts of "Long Road" before I decided to use Brayton, Nebraska, as the main character's hometown. I've always been fascinated by ghost towns and, instead of creating a completely fictional village, I wanted to resurrect and modernize one of the many towns I'd read about here...


When it existed, Brayton sat just a few miles east of a spot where Highway 281 intersects with two gravel roads. If you're ever looking for the road that leads to Brayton, "X" literally marks the spot.

I didn't know that the first time I went looking for it.

In the late 90s -- when I started considering the resurrection of Brayton to use as Heather's hometown -- my husband and I went searching for whatever remnants of it we could find. I knew it was located somewhere between the present-day towns of Wolbach and Greeley, but this was long before Google maps made it easy to find almost anything.

When we reached the "X" in the highway, I felt drawn down one road in particular, so we turned and wound around on the gravel until we ended up encountering some farmers on a minimum maintenance road.

We asked if they knew of Brayton, and they said we'd driven right past it. They drew out a map on a slip torn from a bank envelope to point out its exact location.

Unfortunately, the path where the railroad once sat and a few pieces of the old schoolhouse were the only remaining pieces of the town.

Still, I felt a strong draw to the area and decided Brayton would be the town I'd resurrect and modernize in "Long Road."

Since that day, a big part of me has wondered what the real town of Brayton looked like and what its inhabitants were like.

Fast Forward

Charley & Mary MurphyAfter publishing "Long Road," I went to Brayton, Nebraska's Wikipedia page and added that a fictionalized version of the town was used in my novel.

But who on earth would look up Brayton, Nebraska, on Wikipedia? The town hadn't existed for almost 70 years.

Then Mary-Anne Linden contacted me. She'd begun reading my book after discovering it on Brayton's Wikipedia page and asked if I had any personal connection to the town.

I told her why I'd chosen it, and she shared what she knew about the town.

It turns out her mother grew up in Brayton. Mary-Anne's grandfather, Charley Murphy, owned a general store there. He also served as the postmaster and station master.


Charley Murphy's general store in Brayton.
The best part -- Mary-Anne shared photos of Brayton.

Now, between the information and photos she's provided and the tidbits I've dug up through the Internet, books and digital archives, I have a clearer picture of what life in the real Brayton, Nebraska, might've been like.






Here's what I now know:

Brayton's post office was established in February 1888 and discontinued in 1945. From what I understand, World War II played a part in the town's demise as men and women were called out of the remote Nebraska town to become part of the war effort.


The town hit its peak population between 1910 and 1930 with about 75 residents calling it home.

It was a railroad town established by the Lincoln Land Company. The rail that ran through it was part of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad.

Brayton train station


Its inhabitants were Irish (a characteristic that made it into "Long Road").



According to a story by The Associated Press, Brayton had two grain elevators and was fairly important as a grain center until 1936.


It also had a dance hall, a bank, three grocery stores, a blacksmith shop, a hotel, a pool hall, saloons and a horse race track among its amenities.

It was the site of a murder, when Nick and Joe Debusse beat and shot farmer Robert Kuntz on Christmas night in 1891.

Its last resident was Mrs. Tracy Schultz, who is fondly remembered by those who knew her.


The last remaining building at Brayton was the schoolhouse.


And finally, an old plat-map of Brayton Township shows a fun connection to Harry Potter. Well, okay, it shows there was a Muggle family and a Potter family that owned land near Brayton.

At first, I hesitated about adding anything about "Long Road" to the Brayton, Nebraska, Wikipedia page. Now, I'm glad I did, and I'm so thankful Mary-Anne contacted me. The photos and information provided through our exchange satisfies a curiosity I've had for a long time.

To me, it's priceless.
* * *
Kathryn Harris is an award-winning journalist and the author of "The Long Road to Heaven."

Twenty-one days.

Three Weeks.

That's all that remain before my parents close on their new home.

No doubt it's an exciting time for them. But it's a stressful time, as well.

It's not an easy task to sift through 50 years of belongings in a little over a month. Not when nearly every item they own has a memory attached to it.

Two weeks ago, my sisters and I tore through the lofts in the double-car garage in an effort to help them clean up. On one side, my dad kept his finished and unfinished woodworking projects. The other side held a treasure trove of toys and games from our childhood, as well as mismatched wooden chairs from my long-deceased grandmother's dining room.

At one point, my sister pulled out a broken trinket from the past and hesitated over what to do with it.

Without a second thought, her husband said, "Pitch it."

When she continued to hesitate, he added, "You'll always have the memory. You don't need to hold onto broken things."

His words stuck with me. For the past two weeks, I've given a lot of thought to what he said in relation to the need so many people -- including myself -- have to hold onto physical objects.

To complicate those thoughts, I've tried to reconcile my dad's desire to take nearly every scrap of wood from his woodshop with him.

How can one square block be so ridiculously valuable? 

Then again, how can you put a price tag on memories and dreams? Isn't that what we're talking about?


A broken toy, a mismatched chair, an empty can of Prince Albert tobacco.

Each of those items had a childhood memory attached to it, one that conjured an image of playing Little Peoples outside in the summer time, the taste of Grandma's Shur-fine soda and homemade fried chicken, and the smell of my dad's pipe from way back in his smoking days.

Each of those items made those memories tangible, allowed us to hold a physical piece of that precious moment in time once again the palms of our hands.

And I don't think it's that much difference for my dad and his scraps of wood.

He's a woodcarver and a woodworker. When he looks at a piece of wood, he doesn't see a block of oak or maple or walnut or pine. He sees what it could be, a tangible piece of a dream.

It's pretty hard to put a price on that. Even if it doesn't look like much.


* * *Kathryn Harris is an award-winning journalist, professional whiner and author of the contemporary not-nearly-enough-smut-for-today's-horndog-readers novel "The Long Road to Heaven." 

I did the A-to-Z Blog Challenge.

And failed.

It wasn't a miserable failure. I think an accurate description would be that I tripped at the finish line.

But, like all true competitors, I've come back tonight to finish the race.

I stumbled at W, so tonight is for W through Z.

W is for Why?

Why did I stumble a the finish line of the A-to-Z Blog Challenge?

Quite simply, I came down with a nasty bug on Tuesday last week. I spiked a fever, my throat felt like it was on fire, my head pounded.

Thankfully, I did not require any sort of X-Rays.

It's not like I'm afraid of having x-rays. I've had a lot of the over the years.

I broke my wrist in second grade when I was jumping rope and stumbled over a kickball. (That took talent.)

I caught pneumonia in junior high and had to have chest x-rays.

I broke three bones in my foot in 2000 while playing Barracuda on stage with my first cover band. It was Halloween. My husband -- a guitarist -- had to drive me to the ER dressed in drag. The radiologist happened to be the drummer's sister-in-law. She refused to acknowledge she knew us.

Good times. Good times.

I also had an x-ray last year to help determine why I kept walking like a gimp. Turns out I tore my calf muscle two years earlier, and it was straining my Achilles tendon.

YOU wouldn't believe how bad that hurts when it's overused.

And speaking of you, I want to thank all of YOU who click my links, like my page and read my posts. I especially want to express gratitude to YOU who have bought a copy of my book and read it. It means the world to me.

THANK YOU.

And finally, today is also for Z, and Z is for ZERO, which is the number of cares that I give about things that don't matter.

So I'll exit the 2016 A-to-Z Blog Challenge with this bit of advice that I believe originally came from George Carlin that fits right in with my ZERO:

"Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things."

Catch you on the flip side.
**** * *Kathryn Harris is an award-winning journalist, professional whiner and author of the contemporary not-nearly-enough-smut-for-today's-horndog-readers novel "The Long Road to Heaven." 

I'm doing the A-to-Z Blog Challenge.

Today is for V, and V is for VERBAL VOMIT.

I don't like to get into politics. The topic is too divisive, and I think people who follow this blog -- all twelve of you -- aren't really interested in my interpretation of the Bill of Rights.

I'm not arrogant enough to think anyone would care if I stomped my feet and vowed to move to Canada if the candidate I don't support ends up in office.

Plus, why should I move? S/He's the one who sucks.

Seriously, though, such tantrums bandied about by celebrities are an insult to those whose need for asylum is a life-and-death situation. It's a slap in the face to the innocent people whose wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time circumstances resulted in their deaths.

To the 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust.

To the 2 million Cambodians and Chinese who died under the Khmer Rouge.

To the millions who died under Joseph Stalin's rule in the Soviet Union.

To the hundreds of thousands killed under Idi Amin's rule in Uganda.

The countless victims of daesh in Syria and Iraq.

Those people were loved by someone. They had wants and dreams and talents that could've made a difference in the world. And they lost what they had -- most of them in excruciating ways -- because of real political strife.

Please don't interpret this post as an endorsement of one candidate over another. It's not.

And celebs on both sides of the political spectrum have thrown this ridiculous tantrum.

You'll have to forgive me for not buying into the verbal vomit of those who live in these United States of Entitlement and still find a reason to complain.
* * *Kathryn Harris is an award-winning journalist, professional whiner and author of the contemporary not-nearly-enough-smut-for-today's-horndog-readers novel "The Long Road to Heaven."

I'm doing the A-to-Z Blog Challenge.

Today is for U, and U is for UNBELIEVABLE.

I'm a little late with today's post, but I still made U on its assigned day.

I had started writing a post on another topic last night, but I got sidetracked when my husband started watching The Babadook on Netflix.

By the time I got around to finishing the post, my ambition had waned and it was time for bed. I lost the inspiration sometime overnight, and it stayed lost until I started pushing my lawnmower around the yard a few minutes ago.

                          Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive 
                         the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”
                                                                                -Luke 18:17


My mind began wandering to a few days ago when I read an article about a Eucharistic miracle in Poland that demonstrated Luke 18:17 says.

Summary: On Christmas Day 2013, a consecrated host fell to the floor during Mass. The priest placed it in a container with water and red stains -- later verified by the Department of Forensic Medicine as tissue similar to a heart muscle -- began to appear.

The article had led to a conversation with my husband and daughter about the leaps of faith Christians make and how rampant cynicism in modern society has made taking those leaps of faith more challenging.
Think about it for a moment. You have to approach spirituality with the naivete of a child or your faith will fall flat.
As a Catholic, I'm asked to believe in God the Father, Jesus the Son, the Holy Spirit, the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting, as well as a few other things. 
That's quite the list. The resurrection of the body alone is enough to earn a few sidelong glances from people who probably sit right next to me in church and proclaim the same belief each week without really thinking about what they're saying.  
How can I believe such a thing when everything in the world tells me that's not possible? 
Well, God is not of this world.
How is the resurrection of the body anymore far-fetched than the fact that you and I -- two living,  breathing, thinking, decision-making beings -- came from a single act that united two very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very small cells?
It's not. If you're willing to make that leap of faith. Because through Him, all things are possible. 
* * *Kathryn Harris is an award-winning journalist, professional whiner and author of the contemporary not-nearly-enough-smut-for-today's-horndog-readers novel "The Long Road to Heaven."

I'm doing the A-to-Z Blog Challenge.

Today is for T, and T is for TOYS.

Not just any toys. I'm talking about my favorite toys from childhood.

In a previous post, I mentioned I'm the youngest by 6-1/2 years in a family of four girls. And I'm here today to testify to the fact that four girls growing up in the 70s/80s -- no matter what the age difference -- equaled an entire commune of Barbies.

My Dad made each one of us our own two-room doll house decorated with wallpaper, tile and remnants of the shag carpet leftover from construction of our house. To give the houses an upstairs, we stole the game boards from Monopoly and Chutes & Ladders and leveled them with blocks on the roofs. We even cut up empty cereal boxes to make convertible cars for our dolls.




The year I was born, my sisters each received Barbie houses
handmade by my Dad and decorated by my Mom. Get a
load of the curlers in my one sister's hair. Better yet, get a
load of that lamp hanging in the upper corner above the piano.
Groovy, man. 
And my sisters had the coolest dolls.

My oldest sister had Francie, Barbie's best friend. My next oldest sister had the vintage Barbie and this really cool working shower set. And my third sister had the absolute coolest Barbie-like doll of all: Tuesday Taylor.

I don't have any pictures of her playing with Tuesday Taylor, but I learned just last week that someone had uploaded this groovetastic gem to YouTube. (The first 30-second bit calls her Tiffany Taylor, but the second commercial, well, let's just say it's a fine specimen of life for women in the 1970s.)



As you can see in the video, Tuesday Taylor was this awesome doll whose hair could flip from blonde to brunette. In hindsight, she looked kind of like a confused skunk, but I remember begging and pleading for my sister to let me play with her Tuesday Taylor doll.

The only Barbie I had to play with at the time was a doll named Sunkissed; she was one of those cheap knock offs whose hollow plastic legs came apart and eventually fell off. (I still have her someplace in my packed-away collection of childhood memorabilia.)

Unfortunately, every time I would ask my sister if I could play with Tuesday Taylor, I heard the same thing: "No. You'll break her."

Every now and then -- after a lot of begging and pleading -- she broke down and let me play with Tuesday under close supervision, but more often than not I was denied.

My adult mind accepts her reasoning. After all, I was more than six years younger than she was and my four-year-old hands hadn't developed the excellent fine motor skills she had.

And I really had nothing to complain about. I soon got my very own real Barbie -- a Malibu P.J.  doll; she was the first in a rather extensive collection that included a Barbie Townhouse and a Barbie Beauty Salon. (I was NOT spoiled. The salon was a birthday present, and I spent an entire summer taking rusty nails out of a stack of used lumber to earn money for the townhouse.)

But my adult mind also occasionally reminds me how big of a load of bull my sister's excuse was.

You see, the sister that owned the Tuesday Taylor doll grew up to become a physical therapist. She takes people whose bodies are broken and helps get them back in working order. And she's very good at what she does.

She better be. She had enough practice on all of the Barbie dolls that she purposely broke just so she could put them back together.

Oh, if I only knew then what I know now...I still wouldn't change a thing.

* * *Kathryn Harris is an award-winning journalist, professional whiner and author of the contemporary not-nearly-enough-smut-for-today's-horndog-readers novel "The Long Road to Heaven."

I'm doing the A-to-Z Blog Challenge.

Today is for S, and S is for STOP.

Despite the fact that "S" is one of the most commonly used letters in the alphabet, I had trouble deciding what to write about.

Then something happened on the way home from work and, after I calmed down, I realized the incident would be excellent blog fodder.

So here's the story...

I've decided to go out to my parents' house for an hour or two each night after work to help them get their belongings packed up.

After nearly 50 years on the same acre of land, it's possible to accumulate a lot of stuff.

A lot. A lot.

So I spent a couple of hours helping liquidate belongings in the garage before getting in my vehicle to go home. I live about 20 miles from them. It's a short drive through town and about 15 miles on the highway.

On the way into town, I stopped at Burger King so I wouldn't have to cook. I pulled up to the ordering speaker in the drive-thru, stepped on the brakes and my  SUV went PUUUfffuuuuh and my brake pedal went all the way to the floor.

AAAAnnnnddd I no longer had brakes.

What I did have is a Burger King employee repeatedly asking me, "Can I take your order?"
My husband, aka, brake-fixing
knight in shining armor. 
All I could do was sit there with my mouth open, thinking, "If I hadn't stopped at BK, I'd have lost my brakes at highway speed or worse...approaching the intersection with the highway."

And still the poor guy at the drive-thru kept repeating, "Can I take your order?"

His voice finally registered, so I turned to the speaker and said, "No thanks," (which I've secretly kind of always wanted to do to be mischievous, but not in this circumstance).

Then I backed up and parked so I could call my husband to rescue me.

He promptly arrived on the scene, diagnosed the ruptured brake line, and fixed the issue right there in the parking lot.

I eventually did go pick up our supper from BK, but not until I thanking God multiple times over. If I hadn't stopped to pick up supper, there's a really good chance I wouldn't have stopped when I reached the intersection with the highway.

That's a little too close for me.
* * *Kathryn Harris is an award-winning journalist, professional whiner and author of the contemporary not-nearly-enough-smut-for-today's-horndog-readers novel "The Long Road to Heaven."